


The Traitor

by Allothi



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-10
Updated: 2010-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-13 14:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allothi/pseuds/Allothi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The King of Kent bowed, very low.</i></p><p>(Gwen-centric, gen, futurefic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Traitor

**Author's Note:**

> Gen, futurefic, background Gwen/Arthur. This was mostly written during the hiatus between seasons two and three and thus takes no account of season three.
> 
> Huge thanks to earis for beta-reading!

The King of Kent bowed, very low. The Queen of Kent curtsied. King Uther bowed, slightly less low. Arthur bowed, and Gwen curtsied, extremely low indeed. After years of practice, she felt that she was probably closer to perfection in the field of earnest, graceful humility than any other princess or queen of Camelot had ever been. Or had ever needed to be. The Queen of Kent came up to her and embraced her, and began to talk with both charm and assurance about the journey she'd had, and the harvest, and the new extension to the east wing of the castle, and she only slipped in a very few, very minor allusions to Gwen's background.

In the castle courtyard, meanwhile, overlooked by the three disembodied heads of the three latest Camelotians to be convicted of sorcery, a group of guards was beginning the work of unloading Kent's tribute to Camelot for the year. It filled seventeen covered wagons, and seemed likely to ensure that Camelot would spend a far more comfortable winter than Kent did.

Back inside, the various guests and domestic nobility were beginning to talk more freely. Wine was served, and the sound of laughter began to punctuate the general hum of conversation. Gwen worked hard to maintain the convivial atmosphere, making introductions and shepherding her guests from group to group, mentally running over the list of quarrels, blood feuds and recent skirmishes that seemed most pertinent. She glided over to smile and flatter a certain Oxonian knight and guide him smoothly away from a native of Berkshire whom some hidden current of the gathering had been sweeping dangerously close. She pretended to herself, almost successfully, that she wasn't at all the kind of person who would far rather hide in a corner (preferably of a different room) at parties. And she avoided Arthur, who had a tendency to tell her, and with perfect honesty, that he was sure nothing terrible would happen if she just let things be for five minutes.

A servant signaled to Gwen from the edge of the room, and she nodded back. Two heavy, oaken doors were flung open, and the guests invited to take their seats in the feasting hall. Gwen had been up late the previous night trying to draw up a seating plan almost guaranteed not to inflame any political tensions, and she now spent a few minutes on high alert, lest her efforts for peace be ruined because Lord Keynes would rather like to sit next to the Duke of Hampshire's pretty daughter, or because said pretty daughter herself seemed to feel rather similarly about the Duchess of Sussex.

The Queen of Kent complimented Gwen on how nice everything looked, and Gwen counted slowly to ten to leave space for any ensuing mitigatory remark. When none came, she allowed herself a breath of relief that she probably hadn't made any mistakes in the way the room was dressed, at least. She saw Arthur a few places along, chatting jovially with the King of Kent. King Uther (whom Gwen still had trouble thinking of as anything but The King) was intent upon his food. Gwen relaxed a degree or two further. The castle cook was a native Camelotian and had little to no talent for party food, and that was perhaps the best thing about him. Gwen had discovered, after years of painful and often humiliating experiences with _petit fours_ , _hors d'oeuvres_ , calves' feet, and a number of different animals made to look like entirely different animals, that what every member of the nobility really wanted in a feast could be described thus: plentiful ale, large hunks of meat, cutlery optional. And so she had set about providing it.

Elsewhere, the tribute had now all been unloaded and stored away under guard. The servants not involved in serving at the feast were now enjoying their own version, which involved relatively similar food (the meat was from all the same animals) and a less circumlocutory approach to ribald humour.

Squires, guards, and lesser knights also partook of this lesser feast. They were tired and ate hungrily, having had a particularly taxing day. Importantly, however, they were on display, and in all their number, for the foreign servants to report upon to their masters and mistresses. It always paid to ensure that visiting friends went away feeling impressed with Camelot's military capabilities. Somehow, it had an excellent effect upon international relations.

It had taken Gwen a long time to understand the workings of inter-state politics in modern Albion. This was probably because, whilst all important participants had a good, functional, day-to-day understanding of what was and was not in their interests, the larger system of which they formed a part was rarely acknowledged, let alone discussed. But in brief and, alas, somewhat crude summary: all nations were armed, but some were far better armed than others.

Particularly well-armed nations often found that their smaller, weaker neighbours were eager to ally with them and pay large amounts of tribute. Which made sense: after all, these were dangerous times. Terrible things could happen to a small country that found itself _without_ powerful friends. It was a well-observed fact that the kind of surly little place that tried to do without friends would find itself suffering far higher levels of raiding and pillaging. Often particularly concentrated around its borders with more powerful neighbours -- exactly where, if only it had been more amiably disposed, it could have been best protected. Gwen had heard tell that this just went to show what an important thing friendship was.

The prevailing atmosphere of peace and international harmony was occasionally broken in a less localised way by small wars and campaigns, in the aftermath of which Gwen had noticed that the exact nature of various friendships was prone to alter; and there was, perhaps, a certain level of competitiveness between what might be termed the most popular nations. A competitiveness that could sometimes make their smaller neighbours quite nervous. But in main, the leaders of Albion preferred to behave as if they were -- and of course they were, was that not exceptionally clear? -- all good friends.

At least so long as no one was in a bad mood. Or had their patience tried. Or came into more than very brief contact with anyone they particularly disliked. And even then, once a certain amount of alcohol had been consumed, all bets were off.

Gwen now believed that Camelot had only survived the first few years of her marriage and the many Queenless and years before thanks to a few loyal, experienced and supremely tactful old friends of Uther. They had made her feel wretched and worthless, but she supposed that she had to acknowledge a certain indebtedness towards them. Now, having wrested control of such affairs to herself, Gwen felt ever more amazed each year that no feast at which she had played host had ever resulted in a serious international incident. (Of the more moderate kind, there were several, but all ladies of true social standing bore such battle-scars.)

Her kind guests often managed to express -- by their looks and by certain theatrical little exclamations -- an even greater amazement. Ex-servants and blacksmiths' daughters were not supposed to be capable of such achievements. They were not supposed to have any inkling of the necessary knowledge and understanding. Having proved that she _did_ , Gwen seemed to have earnt enough respect that the high-born of Albion would treat her with more ostensible politeness than when she had first been crowned, but with an enduring concern to remind her that she did not number amongst them.

Gwen looked along the great feasting table, as far as she could manage without unroyal leaning and bending. The food was vanishing quickly -- definitely a good sign. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. Not everyone seemed perfectly happy, but no one seemed wrathful, truculent, or otherwise likely to cause loss of life, and that was really as much as she could ask for. Lord Eastbourne and the Duchess of Woking seemed to be reenacting some sort of battle using pieces of meat, but no one around them seemed anything but content with this turn of events, and the Duchess of Woking was, besides, a known Roman army buff: Gwen decided that the battle in question was probably too historical to arouse any warlike passions in anyone's noble breast.

She sometimes wondered if she wouldn't have been happier had she left well enough alone. She could have remained comfortable and she would have wanted for nothing in terms of material needs. Arthur's ignorant and ill-chosen wife, who knew what Uther had been thinking when he let the boy have his way, and of course, she could never make a good Queen, but at least she stayed out of the way, and then, short of -- well, it would be awfully convenient, not that anyone could _hope_ for such a thing; besides, those peasant women all lived until they were ninety -- what was done was done and could not be altered.

Gwen might not have been completely happy: dressing prettily, giving alms and still being treated a little bit like a servant girl (or worse). But it would have been a simpler life.

Gwen also still sometimes fell prey to the sense that she should ask Arthur to _do_ something about it all: class, hypocrisy, armed international intimidation. Everything. But she had mostly ceased to think of him as quite as all-conquering as she had formerly, in truth, led herself to believe.

At least he would often help her to aid in the escape of suspected sorcerers. These last few years, after everything that had happened with Merlin, Gwen had often thought Arthur was starting to come around. A few months ago they had ridden through the place where Merlin and Morgause had fought, and Arthur had looked very solemn and said, "If he ever comes back," and, "Perhaps," and he had frowned very deeply. Gwen hoped he was coming around.

The rate of eating about the table gradually slowed and ceased. The feasting had come to and end. The servants, well-trained, began clearing the tables. Gwen reminded herself that she was not supposed to help them and regretted, as often, that nor could she join the talk there would undoubtedly be, back in the hot, steaming kitchens, as the last of the leftovers were taken care of. Town gossip and nonsense, most of it; but she missed the friendships she had had to give up on her marriage, lest her friends be sent away for treating their Princess like a commoner. She almost missed the hard days and poor diet that had made the nobles' leavings seem the highest luxury. Something about the end of a feast always made Gwen nostalgic.

The connecting doors were thrown open again, to let the party spread out. More wine and ale were brought in, along with chess sets, and several ex-feasters began to play (Gwen hoped not too competitively). The rest milled about, talking and drinking, noisier and less restrained than they had been earlier. A number gathered about the minstrels who were now playing in one corner of the room.

It took half an hour before the first minor upset. A Kentish knight who had obviously taken too great a liking to the castle ale took it upon himself to offer an unofficial alternative to the official musicians. He sang loudly and not entirely tunelessly, and, Gwen realised as she drew near, he had chosen for his song an old war ballad, with all the original words, dating from a time obviously well before the current peace between Kent and Essex. She quieted the inconvenient young man temporarily with a large tankard, and then committed him into the hands of a few of his brother knights, who performed demonstrations of straightforward, masculine friendship in the form of thumps on the shoulder and hearty shouts and grins, and swiftly manoeuvred him somewhere away from the gathering and, Gwen hoped, well out of earshot.

She looked about her again and saw that Marianna of Hampshire and the Duchess of Sussex were seated close together on the thick rugs down by the fire, gazing foolishly into one another's eyes. Gwen sighed and set forth to make things right.

It was very, very late when the festivities finally came to an end. As Gwen's guests retired, a number of bodies became evident, scattered here and there, some down on the rugs, others seated with their heads nestled at their shoulders, or sprawling forwards onto the table, and all snoring at different approximations of softly. King Uther was amongst the fallen: seated on his High Chair, his crown still perfectly in place upon his lolling head. Gwen helped him up and to his room, and he murmured to her, still half-asleep, as they went, that she was a good girl, a good girl after all.

Uther's personal attendants met Gwen part-way to his chamber and relieved her of his care. She wished them and him a good night, and then she went to look in on her children.

They were sleeping, face-to-face across the middle of their room, their two little beds pressed against opposite walls. The nursemaid, too, was sleeping, the door open to her connecting room. Gwen kissed first the elder and then the younger of her daughters on the brow. The elder stirred slightly but did not wake. The younger slept deeply. Gwen wished she could promise them a better world. She whispered instead that she would do what she could.

Arthur met her near the entrance to her own chamber, having somehow known, as always, when she would be there. He kissed her and said that she must be very tired. She agreed that she was. She kissed him lingeringly. And then he left her and went to his own rooms, and she went to her bed.

*

Gwen lay awake in the darkness and did not sleep.

Eventually, she heard a familiar sound from outside her room. It was something very much like the call of a wood pigeon: three notes, the second longer than the other two. She rose, dressed simply, and set off out of the castle, following secret passages Arthur himself had shown her and helped to keep secret from the guards.

The night was overcast and very black, but Gwen knew her way well enough. The passages had taken her to beyond the city walls, and she picked her way across stubbled fields until she reached the forest. She followed round at the edge of the trees until, at a particular spot, she met a young woman with a pair of horses. They rode together down forest paths, their way lighted by a dim glow of light that lay always upon the ground ahead, never behind them, and they reached a clearing that was bright with a crackling fire and filled with people and the hum of their voices.

As an infant, Gwen had been taken to the druids for her naming ceremony. The ancient tradition was still adhered to by many of the population, law or no. What was execution, after all, compared to the danger that a newborn's unprotected soul could be snatched away by who knew what to who knew where, far beyond mortal finding? And then, the more convincingly King Uther spoke of the power and dangers of magic, the more important it seemed to many a simple, uneducated mind to stay quite firmly on magic's good side. Albeit quietly, without upsetting their powerful, dangerous king.

Gwen had no memory of her naming. She had sometimes tried to imagine it, building upon details of the tiny, pared-down ceremonies she had, by sneakwork and haste, contrived for her own children: two nerve-wracking days, divided by little more than a year. What she did remember, vividly, was her coming-of-age, when she was thirteen. Her father had taken her to a lonely spot several miles long walk from their home, and he had left her there, and told her that someone would come for her. It had been over an hour later, Gwen by then shivering with cold and with fear, when her escorts left their hiding places to greet her and whisk her off to the druid encampment. She spent one day and one night at the camp, she followed the rituals, she swore her oaths and she made her offerings; and after that one day and one night she was sent back to her home, her senses enchanted so that she could find her way, but never back again to where she had been.

Her father had hugged her tightly at the door, and then again when she came inside. She hugged him back and then told him solemnly as they sat down for their meal that she was now an adult, just like him. At the time, and at times even now, it seemed like the most important point in her life.

And so perhaps all the nobles were right, and Gwen _was_ the wrong kind of person to be a princess. Not their kind of princess, at any rate. She had a different set of loyalties hidden, living at the back of her mind. Perhaps everyone could tell, except for Uther and Arthur. The day Gwen had finally walked out on her own and made contact again with the druids, repledged all her oaths and offered whatever support she could give, if any of Uther's old, tactful, loyal friends had found out, they would have shaken their heads and looked knowingly and said, well, what d'you expect?

Gwen dismounted, her escort after her, and Gwen went towards the bonfire and embraced old friends, and was embraced in her turn and had a mug of hot cider urged into her hands to ward off the autumn chill. Gwen's appearance had been disguised by a spell, but there were people here who still knew who she was, and some who had known her of old. There were druids here, escaped sorcerers and their relations; and there were ordinary people, too, and amongst them men and women who had lived in the city of Camelot or worked in the castle when Gwen had, before she was married. Some had been outcast for one reason or another, and some had run away of their own accord.

Gwen had information to share with the druid leaders, and new instructions to receive, new plans to discuss, and she still had to return to the castle before daybreak, before she would be missed. But she took a moment to luxuriate in being surrounded by friends. There were people here who had known her long enough and well enough that with them, she could feel that she was simply herself: no more or less, but simply _Gwen_.

She spoke; she listened; she planned. Too soon, she found herself hastening to leave, once again.

As Gwen came to the edge of the clearing, she looked back and observed how large the little community seemed to have grown since the last time she had seen it. They were growing in numbers, in strength and in confidence. Their time was coming, she thought. She knew that she was always prone to a wild, unreasonable kind of optimism in these moments that fell right on the point of her departure, her return to her day-to-day life -- but even still, she felt filled with hope and faith that when her children came of age, perhaps, just perhaps, they would not have to do it in secret.


End file.
